Taking a Breather
Satou here. It’s great to work really hard at something, but it’s important to know your limits, too. If you assume you’ll be young forever, then you might find you’ve pushed yourself too far without even noticing.
“ Wind Shield Fuujun!”
Zena’s quickly chanted Wind Magic spell blocked the arrow Mia fired for practice.
Without missing a beat, she charged her Fire Rod with magic and aimed a Fire Shot at Mia.
“ Water Mizu.”
Mia used Spirit Magic to throw a ball of water at Zena’s Fire Shot, canceling it out.
“Mm, you pass.”
Mia held up both arms to form a big circle, nodding with satisfaction.
Once she saw Mia’s signal, which indicated she’d defeated the surprise attack from an imaginary monster, she looked back toward the rest of her squad.
“Zenny’s coming along nicely,” Arisa commented.
“For sure.” I nodded.
She’d gotten the hang of continuously using enemy detection magic, and her quick decision-making in magic left nothing to be desired.
Following her gaze, I saw her comrades in yet another mock battle with Liza and Nana.
“Ooh, that was a good defense from Lou-Lou.”
“She’s starting to get used to Liza’s speed.”
“Well, only because Liza’s holding back…”
“No need to point that out,” I responded blandly.
Their levels were too different to have a fair fight, so they were practicing defense against Liza and attacking against Nana.
Just now, Lou had dodged one of Liza’s attacks, and Iona was practicing counterattacking.
Lilio had returned from her scouting research as of this afternoon, and was back to joining the others in training, currently assisting Lou to make defense easier.
“Hiyaaaah!”
Liza blocked Lou’s “Shield Bash” with the back of her leg, using her knee to lessen its impact before jumping back with a light kick.
“…… Wind Hold Kaze Shibaru.”
At that moment, Zena’s Wind Magic spell wrapped around Liza’s body.
Liza resisted the Wind Magic, though, and scattered the spell with a light flick of her spear.
Lilio immediately threw a smoke bomb, but Liza swung her spear like a bat and knocked it away.
“…Damn, for real?”
Exclaiming in surprise, Lilio nevertheless followed up with a throwing knife, and hid herself behind a nearby bush.
She was practicing avoiding counterattacks from monsters, since it was easy to get hit with a nasty backlash if one dawdled after attacking a monster.
This was all part of what Lilio had learned in her scouting lessons, so I incorporated it into her training. I figured I might as well throw it into the explorers’ school classes for some feedback, too.
“Aah, she blocked it…”
Arisa sounded sympathetic.
Iona had thrust her broadsword in perfect time with Lilio’s throwing knife, but Liza knocked the sword aside with the butt end of her Magic Spear.
While Iona was recovering from the block, Liza struck, and soon Zena’s whole squad was down.
Iona’s favored broadsword was great for fighting larger monsters, but it wasn’t nearly as well suited to a nimble opponent like Liza. She would need to have around level 30 stats or the “Strength” skill, at the very least.
“All right, time to break down the battle.”
Having closely observed the match, Arisa took over the proceedings to give a play-by-play of the fight.
It’d be great to have a magical screen to replay the fights, but I’ve held off on making such a thing since it seems a bit too high-tech for this world.
The sun was starting to set, so we wrapped up the day’s training after the play-by-play analysis.
“We should try putting all your training into practice next.”
“Do you mean in the labyrinth?”
I nodded at Zena. “Would you like to try staying two or three nights? You can help me develop a new hunting ground in the process.”
Judging by what I’d seen in today’s training, it seemed like it would be more effective to raise her level in actual battle at this point.
“So we’re finally going into the labyrinth tomorrow, huh? Damn, I can’t wait.”
Lou smacked her fists together.
I was glad she was so enthusiastic, but…
“No, we’ll take the day off tomorrow.”
“A day off?”
“Yes, since it would be dangerous to go into the labyrinth while you’re still exhausted from training.”
According to my AR display, all four members of Zena’s squad had the condition Exhaustion: Severe. At this rate, it would become “Enervation,” and they would get a negative debuff-like effect.
“Then let’s take tomorrow to gather food and supplies for going into the labyrinth.”
“Good thinking, Zenacchi!”
Lilio whistled enthusiastically at Zena’s proposal.
“Yes, good idea… Would you be able to help us, by any chance, Sir Knight?”
Iona chimed in, too, directing a proposal at me.
The corners of her mouth were turned up just enough that, for a moment, she wore an expression that almost looked plotting or mischievous.
It was the kind of face a meddlesome high school girl might make if she was planning to give her friend a little push.
In a weird way, I felt like I was back in my school days.
“Yes, of course. If you could all take the morning to rest, we can head out to pick up provisions in the afternoon.”
I agreed to Iona’s suggestion, and we ended training for the day.
“Master, what are you making?”
After dinner, I was doing some work in the research lab of the Ivy Manor when Arisa came to visit using teleport magic.
Lelillil, the house fairy who manages the Ivy Manor, was upstairs in the kitchen making dinner.
“It’s just a little magic tool for defense.”
“Ooh, what’s it do?”
“That prototype there should be usable, so try putting it on your arm like a gauntlet and charging it with magic.”
It was a gauntlet-style guard that only went up to the wrist, like the kind a lot of magical soldier girls used to wear in old anime.
“Oh nice, it makes a transparent shield!”
“It’s about as strong as a Shield spell from a level-thirty mage, give or take.”
A transparent kite-shaped shield floated above Arisa’s wrist.
Since Zena’s Wind Magic spell Wind Shield used the air as its base materials, it wasn’t great at blocking heavy, fast attacks, so I tried making an off-the-cuff personal shield.
“Is this Practical Magic?”
“That’s right. Remember that ring we found in the shipwrecks in the southern seas that could produce Shield? I made this prototype using the same magical circuits.”
With lightweight maze ant materials as the base, I used the prototype magic equipment I made in the elf village to carve magic circuits into the light material.
It wasn’t nearly as effective as Nana’s equipment’s Space Magic Floating Shield or the automatic self-defense shields I built into Arisa’s and the others’ armor, but it could be made a lot more cheaply.
“It uses a lot of magic power, though.”
“I know. It’s about twice as much as the magic needed for the Practical Magic spell Shield.”
At the moment, I was fine-tuning the circuits to reduce the amount of magic needed.
I should have been able to make it work if I used a lacquer made from materials of a monster that absorbed mana to create the Absorption rune. But even in places with lots of mana or magic saturation, the prototype could only gather enough magic for one Shield in an hour, so it wasn’t much help.
“But since you don’t need a chant for it, like Fire Rods and such, it might be useful for Zena or Lilio, don’t you think?”
It left out the variables involved in magic, which meant it always appeared in a fixed place and followed the user in the same way, but it wouldn’t take long to activate as an emergency shield.
“True. But should you really be giving them fancy magical equipment like this?” Arisa looked worried. “It’s definitely going to attract attention, you know?”
“I’ll just say it’s a promotional gift from the Echigoya Company.”
This product wasn’t being sold to the public, but I had a lot of links to the Echigoya Company Celivera branch, so it shouldn’t be too big of a problem.
“Well, in that case, I want one, too!”
In the case of Arisa and the other girls, it’d be more for self-defense than battle, so maybe I could make it into an ordinary item they could wear with their everyday clothes?
“Sure. While I’m at it, why don’t I make it into a cute accessory?”
“Yaaay!”
Arisa jumped up and down with glee.
“I’ll make enough for the whole group, then.”
I could make something similar to Arisa’s for Mia and Lulu and alter the ones for the vanguard to make the Shield more like their signature weapons.
“Do you think you could design the accessories for me?”
“Oh, but of course!”
With a weirdly old-fashioned response, Arisa popped back to the mansion with teleport magic.
Oh, I know.
This item might be popular for nobles’ bodyguards, and I could easily mass-produce the simple one that just resulted in the Shield, so maybe I really should add it to the Echigoya Company’s lineup?
That way, even if Arisa and the others used it in public, they wouldn’t get targeted by any weirdos.
This Shield was probably too strong; I didn’t want the company to become overwhelmed with orders like it had with the mass-produced Magic Swords, or have the product fall into the wrong hands, so I should probably downgrade it to the kind of Shield that a newbie Practical Magic user could produce.
Once I finished making equipment for Zena, I headed toward the area where we would be developing the hunting grounds for a few nights.
“I guess around here?”
I picked the border between area nineteen and area eleven, near where the explorers’ school students did their hands-on training.
Area nineteen was a popular hunting ground for popular monsters like mantis and beetle types, but the part of it that connected with area eleven was full of dangerous poison monsters, and getting to the best hunting spots required passing through a large dangerous cavern where areamasters and their spawn sometimes lurked, so this section was rarely used.
I had avoided doing much work in area eleven so it could serve as a good practicing ground for the students, but since Zena and some of the graduates would be hunting here now, I wanted to modify it to be fairly easy to use.
“First of all, let’s get rid of those pesky poisonous monsters…”
I used my “Map Searching” skill to mark all of the poisonous monsters, then used no less than five rounds of Remote Arrow to take them all out.
As I watched nearly 500 dots vanish one by one on my radar, I used Magic Hand to put any monster corpses within reach into my Storage.
“That ought to do it for poisonous monsters.”
Next, I thinned out the monsters that would be too strong for Zena and the others to train against and prepared a few areas with Earth Magic spells like Wall and Stone Object to serve as good bases for hunting.
While I was doing all that, Arisa contacted me with the Space Magic spell Telephone.
“Hey, I finished those designs you asked for. Where are you?”
“Sorry, I won’t be back from the labyrinth for a while. Could you just leave them on the workbench in the Ivy Manor?”
“Okey-dokey. I dunno what you’re up to in there, but don’t wear yourself out too much.”
“I’ll be careful,” I reassured the worried-sounding Arisa and went back to work.
“It’d be good to have a few restrooms and watering holes.”
I used my map search to find and capture some harmless slimes, and put them at the bottom of the pits beneath the toilets and trash bins I made using Stone Object.
They were at the bottom of very deep holes, but I’d hate for someone to get bitten on the butt by a slime, so I used the “Animal Training” skill to tame them just to be safe.
Remembering how Nana’s sisters had tamed a giant spider and made it into a mount, I tried it and found I could do it quite easily. Once a monster was tamed, its master’s name would appear in its status, so I changed my name to my fake labyrinth alias, Tsarayuya, first.
Finally, I used the “Disguise” skill to make it look like all these facilities had been abandoned for many years.
Incidentally, the labyrinth vacation home and the labyrinth hot springs have flushing-toilet-style magic equipment made by the elves.
“So this is the only source of clean water nearby…”
The short waterway that fed into the dangerous cavern from an underground source provided a good deal of water.
There were a few other water sources, but they all had their own issues: Some were little more than a small trickle of water, others were extremely muddy, and still others were puddles that likely had water purity issues.
“Well, if there are no good sources, I guess I’ll just make a new one.”
I created a safe zone for lodging in an area that physically couldn’t produce a spawnhole, and used the ever-convenient Stone Object to form a spring and a drainage channel.
The man-made fountain had a water stone at the bottom, and made contact with the labyrinth’s underground mana vein, so it would automatically produce a fixed amount of water. I used a fairly large water stone, so it would probably hold for a good ten years or so.
While I was working, it occurred to me that the water stone could get stolen, so I buried it far enough underground that it would be difficult to retrieve.
“Now I just need to leave some stones nearby that could be used to make a stove and create an area near the watering hole that’ll make it easier to build a shower room and such.”
If I recessed the nearby walls slightly, it would probably be easy to set up water pipes, right?
I was planning to leave this part of the work to the explorers who would actually use it.
They would probably feel more attachment to it if they developed it DIY-style than if everything was already made for them.
“Oh, I know…”
Next to the watering area—near the toilets—I made a vegetable garden of labyrinth plants for emergency rations.
I chose plants that would produce fruit and nuts that, while not very pleasant-tasting, would keep people from starving. It also could serve as food for the slimes during the times of year when explorers didn’t come.
“And while I’m at it, I might as well set up a few bonus items.”
There were only three treasure chests in the area, so I added a few more containing veria magic potions, equipment made from monster materials, and a few other amenities.
None of it was particularly valuable, but it’s always good to make things more comfortable.
“Pochi, Tama, come here for a minute.”
After breakfast, once Karina and her maids had set out, I decided to wrap up some secret business.
I gave the pair the new and improved power limiter tools I’d finished the night before.
Creating an AI to determine when to switch them on and off proved a little too difficult, so I decided to give up on making high-spec Raka clones for now and sought a different approach.
For now, I set it up to detect when Tama and Pochi entered the labyrinth, the mansion, and other limited-access places, and warn them if the mode wasn’t changed.
I built in a micro-sized signaling magic tool to give a weak alert that would flash on the bracelet.
With this simple setup, I was able to use fewer circuits than I had planned.
Building an AI without deep machine learning certainly is tough.
“And for Arisa and the others…”
“You made them already?”
Arisa’s eyes widened when I brought out the other accessories.
“Put it on with the flat side of the gems against your wrist.”
“This is a pretty dull red for gemstones… Oh, wait, they’re cores. But I can see some kind of circuits carved into them when I hold it up to the light—are the cores Magic Items, too?”
“That’s right. They’re separate from the bracelet itself. Try pressing the inner stone and adding some magic.”
“Oooh? I’m kinda glowing.”
Arisa looked down at herself in surprise.
The faint glow was a sort of testing process, so it only lasted a moment.
“…Whoa, it’s giving me Physical Protection!”
“It only works on the person wearing it, and it’s only about as strong as if you used it with a scroll, but yeah.”
“Still, it’ll protect me from scratches and bug bites, so it might be handy for when I’m playing with the kids in the bushes and weeds and such.”
Arisa was becoming a bit of a tomboy, so I warned her that she should be careful as I handed bracelets to the other girls.
“What a cute bracelet.”
“Matchiiing?”
“Pochi’s matches, too, sir!”
Lulu smiled and put on the bracelet, and Pochi and Tama promptly struck poses to show off their matching power-limiter bracelets.
“Mine produces a transparent spear when I charge it with magic.”
“Grrr, Liza’s is a ring? I want a ring, too!”
“It just seemed like it’d be easier to use that way in her case.”
I tried making the floating spear into a bracelet at first, but it was too hard to grip it that way. Likewise, a shield would be more difficult to use in ring form.
“Shield.”
“Yours is star-shaped, huh, Mia? Mine’s shaped like a heart!”
I made Mia’s and Arisa’s last, so I tried playing around with the shapes a bit.
“Hee-hee, mine and Nana’s are nice oblong shields.”
“It should be easier to defend that way, right?”
“Yes!”
Lulu smiled even brighter as she tested out the shield.
“Master, I want a baby-chick shape, I declare.”
“All right, all right. I’ll try to modify it for you tonight.”
Nana pressed her chest against me as she made her demands, so I couldn’t really say no.
“Aw, maaan?”
“Pochi wants a meat shape, sir.”
“Tama, toooo?”
Tama’s and Pochi’s bracelets only had power-limiter-related functionality.
I wouldn’t be able to do it right away, but I promised I would add a cartoon-meat-shaped shield or club in the near future.
“Pochi, Tama! Let’s go exploring!”
Karina burst into the room without so much as a knock.
“Did you all get new equipment?”
Everyone scrambled to hide their pseudo-shields and spears, but Karina had already spotted them.
“They did. Why? Is there something you’d like, too, Lady Karina?”
“There certainly is! A broadsword that won’t get chipped or broken so easily!”
I’m pretty sure I made the one she’s using out of sturdy material, though…
Confused, I asked Karina to show me the broadsword I gave her.
“Wow, it’s definitely beat-up…”
How anyone could wear down a blade so quickly, I have no idea.
“Lady Karina does not seem to excel at holding a sword. I believe she would be better suited to something like a mace.”
The Intelligent Item Raka chimed in from Miss Karina’s chest.
“No thank you! Maces are terribly unstylish!”
“I see…”
Blunt weapons like maces are ideal against enemies with tough outer shells, but they went against Karina’s aesthetic sense.
Actually, I think Karina would be unmatched in the labyrinth with a good old-fashioned iron club, but I wasn’t going to try to force her to use equipment she didn’t want.
In the back of my mind, I had a spectacular vision of Karina in a tiger-striped bikini swinging a club around, but I reluctantly shook the delusion away.
“Then how about a weapon with interchangeable blades like a box cutter? Then you can just swap them out whenever the blade breaks! SHING!”
Arisa gestured to illustrate the impractical gimmick she was describing, which sounded like something right out of anime or manga.
Karina, Pochi, and Tama all seemed thrilled by the idea, but it seemed way too impractical.
“If you’re going to use a setup like that, wouldn’t it be easier to just stock up on multiple broadswords in a Magic Bag?”
I held up a Garage Bag as an example.
“Well, yeah, buuut…”
Arisa seemed reluctant, but the others nodded in agreement with my assessment.
“I have some made out of a few different materials, so I’ll put them all in. Let me know which ones you liked later, all right?”
All of them were made under my fake smithing name, Hephaestus.
They weren’t much different in attack power from the one I gave Karina before, but these four were special in that they would grant the user effects similar to skills like “Strength” or “Agility” when charged with magic.
I finished these at the same time as the war mantis broadsword I gave to Princess Meetia’s guardian knight Lady Ravna, but I kept them stashed away in Storage since I felt like they were too powerful to release to the public.
I had other swords similarly hidden away, too, like a one-handed sword that would paralyze the victim with electricity and a broadsword that set its cuts aflame, but I kept them to myself for now, since they were a bit too flashy.
“I’ll test these out on some beetles at once!”
“Whoo-hoo…”
“Your sword will bounce right off beetles if you don’t cut them just right, so be careful, sir.”
Pochi offered a word of advice to the excited Karina.
They’d been hunting maze ants up until yesterday, but I guess they were switching to maze beetles now.
Unlike in the previous days, Karina hadn’t gained enough experience to get level-up sickness yesterday, so it was probably the perfect time to shift to a new opponent.
“If you’re going after maze beetles, you should try area thirteen.”
The beetle sections in areas two and three weren’t good for leveling up, as there was a constant scramble to get the most monsters.
Since it was only possible to get to area thirteen’s maze beetle section by following a roundabout route, not many people ever made the trek.
Normally, you would have to stay overnight to go there, but it was possible to make it there and back in the same day using the hidden shortcut we developed in area eleven.
I didn’t choose it for Zena and company’s hunting ground because so few parties were allowed to hunt there at the same time and the maze beetles were scarce, which meant you’d have to move around a lot while hunting. That would make it tough for magic users to take breaks to recover their MP.
But since Karina’s group was composed of all melee fighters, that wouldn’t be a particular issue for them.
“There shouldn’t be too much competition there,” I added, handing Tama a map.
This shortcut was currently undeveloped, so I asked Tama and Pochi to handle any traps or dangerous monsters that might still be lurking.
I was thinking of opening it up as another hunting ground for the explorers’ school graduates in the future.
That didn’t mean I would lock the entrance or anything like that; I’d just teach them the shortcut to area thirteen and give them a map with information about the hunting ground.
“So we can hunt as much as we like?”
“Damn, we’ll make a killing!”
Karina’s guards Pina and Erina looked ready to break into a dance—probably because maze beetles were worth more money than maze ants.
The young maids of the mansion gave Karina and her group bento box lunches, and I sent them off to the labyrinth with a warning not to get hurt. Liza was going with them today, too.
“Heeeey, master. You’re not going to train Madame Karina like we’re doing for Zenny and her friends?” Arisa sounded concerned.
“Lady Karina seems more like the learn-through-experience type, so Tama and Pochi are a better match for her.”
According to Tama and Pochi, they worked on leveling up during the morning, then went to less popular areas to engage in mock battles in the afternoon, so she should be gaining plenty of combat experience.
For other kinds of knowledge, one of Karina’s guards like Erina or the newbie could probably just undergo some scouting training.
The newbie seemed to prefer small weapons, so maybe she’d be better suited to scouting than the somewhat clumsy Erina?
“Well, I’m glad you seem to have big ideas and all, but you’d better be sure to follow up on them or Madame Karina will do some serious pouting.”
“Good point. I’m not worried about that, but maybe I’ll invite Lady Karina along to the overnight hunting grounds development we’re going to start tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”
Arisa responded with a smile.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!”
Zena arrived just past noon.
She had overslept and come running here so fast she’d even used Wind Magic.
Still catching her breath, she hastily patted down her tousled hair in an adorable gesture.
Today, she was wearing a ladylike summer dress I gave her for everyday wear along with the outfit for the viceroy’s wife’s tea party. It suited her innocent image very well.
“No need to apologize. We didn’t really set a specific time.”
I’d made a reservation at a restaurant for lunch, but this world was fairly lax about timekeeping, so we still had plenty of time to get there.
“By the way, I managed to get ahold of some of the Blue People’s favorite wine that we discussed the other day.”
“Thank you very much, Satou.”
Zena bowed her head deeply.
The merchant’s guild had acquired a single bottle, so I bought it right away.
There wasn’t enough for what the vampire lord had requested from me, but I could just head out and find some at a later date.
“If you’ve written a letter already, a trustworthy friend of mine was planning to go to the labyrinth village soon, so I can have them deliver both.”
“Oh, but…”
Zena wanted to go to the labyrinth village herself and deliver the letter personally, but I talked her out of it by explaining how long a round trip would take and how many dangers she’d face in the village itself.
Besides, my delivering it to Ban was a much better guarantee he’d get it than was dropping it off somewhere in the labyrinth village.
“All right, then…if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course.”
Zena took the letter from her bag and handed it to me.
I would’ve liked to deliver it right away, but I was planning to hold off on going to the progenitor’s castle in the Lower Stratum until after I’d gotten all the goods he requested.
Even despite this, I was confident that it would reach him much faster than her bringing it to the labyrinth village.
“Young master, your order from the painters’ studio has arrived.”
As we were on our way out, Miss Miteruna approached with a sheaf of papers in hand.
They were the illustrations I’d ordered for the introductory magic textbooks Arisa had requested for the orphanage library.
I flipped through the papers and confirmed that the illustrations were correct. Since there didn’t seem to be any issues, I asked Miteruna to bring them to my study.
“Satou, weren’t those…?”
“They’re for magic textbooks.”
Zena seemed to have spotted the pages with magic runes on them and taken an interest, so I showed her the original copy of the textbook.
“Th-this is amazing. I’ve never seen such an easy-to-understand book on magic before.”
I couldn’t help being a little pleased to hear such frank praise. She seemed too genuinely excited for it to be mere flattery.
“It’s for the kids in the orphanage, so the only difficult theories and such are in the index.”
“The orphanage? There are children there who can read?”
According to Zena, it was incredibly rare for orphaned children to be able to read and write.
“Yes, all thanks to the practice cards we bought in Seiryuu City.”
That only surprised her even more.
“Well, if they can read and write, that opens up their job opportunities in the future,” I explained, adding that this was also the reason for the child-friendly magic book.
Since she seemed intrigued, we stopped by the orphanage on our way to lunch so Zena could observe Arisa from a distance teaching magic to the children.
“So Arisa’s teaching them, is she?”
“Yes, we don’t have any specialized teachers, so Arisa gives them lessons in her free time.”
Other than that, the rest was self-study. Mia and I both tried teaching, too, but my explanations were too hard and Mia’s were too short, so we couldn’t get through to the children.
“Would you like me to come teach them, too, when I’m off-duty, then?”
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t have even dreamed of asking.”
“Of course! It’s the least I can do to thank you for everything!”
I thanked Zena for her offer and accepted as long as she didn’t put herself out too much.
Before we left for the restaurant, I introduced Zena to some of the children, teachers, and staff of the orphanage.
The restaurant in question was one Baronet Dyukeli’s wife had told me about; lesser nobles and affluent merchants went there frequently, so I figured she would enjoy it, too.
“Thank you very much. It was delicious.”
Zena thanked me with a contented smile.
The cuisine avoided using monster meat to cater to nobles, so there wasn’t anything too exciting about it. But the flavor of the food was still more than satisfactory.
“And it was so fancy inside, too… Are you sure it was all right for someone like me to eat there?”
She must’ve noticed the other diners in the restaurant staring at us.
Once we took our seats, we were able to eat in peace, thanks to the decorative plants shielding us from other tables, but people who were walking back and forth definitely cast interested glances our way.
I’m guessing the gossip-loving types were taking note that I was dining with a cute girl they’d never seen before.
“No need to be so self-deprecating. In fact, I’m the one who should apologize for drawing attention.”
“O-oh no! It definitely wasn’t your fault!”
Zena hurried to refute me so urgently that I couldn’t help chuckling.
Fortunately, this put a smile back on Zena’s face, and we peacefully chatted about our favorite dishes from the restaurant until our carriage arrived at its destination: a street packed with shops for explorers.
“This is the street you showed me before, right?”
“Yes, I thought it would be easiest to get everything in one place here.”
This was one of the places we stopped by after Lilio left for her scout training.
Kuuts Alley, where there were many bargains to be found, was just two blocks away.
“I didn’t notice last time, but there are an awful lot of shops selling bones, aren’t there?”
“That’s true. Bone bludgeons are quite inexpensive, and the bones that oil slimes spit up don’t smell strange, so I’m told they make good materials for accessory crafting, too.”
Lumber was a little expensive in Labyrinth City. As such, demi-goblin femurs were often used to make bludgeons and stone axes for newbie explorers, or were combined with claws and fangs from insectoid monsters to make pickaxes.
Leather vests reinforced with bone were popular and used by brand-new and novice explorers alike.
“Hey, mister! Bet your girlfriend would like one of these, yeah?”
“O-oh, goodness, I’m not Satou’s g-girlfriend…”
Zena turned bright red at the salesman’s casual pitch.
As usual, she seemed to be sensitive to that kind of teasing.
“Are these accessories made from horns or claws?”
“That one there’s a good-luck charm made from the bone of a lucky rabbit.”
My AR display exposed the salesman’s lie.
It didn’t look anything like bone to me, but it was actually a modified demi-goblin finger bone.
I couldn’t figure out how they’d changed the look of the bone, so I searched my map for the name of the accessory’s creator in the hopes of asking them later.
…A necromancer?
For some reason, the person who made the accessory had the Ghost Magic ability, not Bone Crafting.
Curious, I searched the Ghost Magic spellbook I got at the dark auction in the old capital and found a spell called Bone Sculpting, which was described as a spell that could work bone like clay.
I hadn’t read this spellbook too closely because I’m not good with horror, but I guess there’s more to Ghost Magic than just making zombies and skeletons.
“So, little lady, how about it? Want a good-luck charm so your man doesn’t get hurt in the labyrinth?”
Unimpressed with my reaction, the salesman set his sights on Zena instead.
Before she could answer, though, a few customers around us burst out laughing.
“Wh-what’s so funny?!”
“Come on, really?”
“Yeah, you’re offering a charm like that to Pendragon the Untouchable?”
“That’s like selling armor to a dragon!”
The salesman was indignant at first, but as the men explained themselves through their laughter, he realized his mistake.
…Hmm?
Among the bone accessories was a pendant made from a fragment of a unicorn’s horn.
Like the finger bone in the charm, this horn had been modified using Ghost Magic.
I wasn’t sure what such a rare item was doing in a place like this, but it had the wonderful effect of curing the wearer of poison and illness, making it a perfect present for Zena.
“Well, I suppose I might as well buy one.”
Instead of the fake lucky rabbit charm, I bought the pendant under the pretense that it would look better on Zena.
“That lucky rabbit pendant is just one large copper—”
Since it was made with the same method, the shopkeeper seemed to have mistaken the unicorn horn pendant for another demi-goblin finger bone product.
“One silver coin!”
He changed the price partway through, clearly trying to overcharge me, but it was still a bargain for the valuable unicorn horn.
“I guess I’ll grab one, too.”
“If Mr. Pendragon is doing it…”
Other people seemed to be lured in by the sight of me purchasing it; the men who’d been laughing all started buying accessories, too.
Exclaiming in glee all the while, the shopkeeper handed over the “good luck” pendant in exchange for my silver coin, and I presented it to Zena.
“May this bring you luck in your labyrinth explorations.”
“Thank you very much, Satou.” Zena put the necklace on and smiled. “I love it.”
“It looks wonderful on you.”
The pendant was a perfect match for Zena’s summer dress.
“Shall we take a little break here?”
“…All right.”
Zena nodded, looking a little embarrassed.
It might sound like something a couple might say in front of a sleazy hotel, but we were standing in front of a lovely café with an open terrace.
Zena’s stomach rumbled at the sweet smell coming from the café, so I pretended not to have heard anything as I proposed that we stop in.
We’d been walking around shopping for almost two hours, so it made sense that she might be a little hungry by now.
“Heya, mister!”
As soon as we walked in, a redheaded girl ran up to us in a waitress outfit.
“Neru! No running in the café!”
“R-right, my bad!”
Neru ducked her head toward the kitchen where the shout came from.
This was actually a café that the Echigoya Company had recently opened near the west guild building.
There weren’t many places to get sweets in Labyrinth City, so I snatched up the excellent location as soon as the space became available to give the venture a try.
“Hello, Miss Neru. You’re not running a cart today?”
“Yeah, Polina brought a couple people with her when she got promoted to the office in the royal capital, so the café’s been a little short-staffed.”
I didn’t have many people I could appoint as factory managers for the confidential work in the royal capital, so I moved Polina over there.
“But hey, at least it means I get to wear this uniform.”
Neru did a little twirl.
The skirt was a bit on the short side, but it was layered with panniers to prevent any accidental flashing. So even if someone as carefree as Neru wore it, I could still look safely.
“It’s very cute.”
“Eh-heh-heh, thanks.”
Neru grinned bashfully.
I’d heard that this was actually a popular job for employees of the Echigoya Company’s Celivera branch because of the cute uniform.
“Neru, table!”
“R-right!”
One of the senior waitresses scolded Neru for standing around.
“H-hey, mister, there’s a special table open on the terrace right now.”
Neru, a little flustered, led the way, and we sat down at a table on the open terrace.
We ordered the popular royal honey pancakes and the blue-green tea made with leaves from Eluette Marquisate. Unlike in a modern Japanese café, there was an extra charge for sugar for the tea.
The tea arrived first; we sipped it until Neru came flying back with a plate in each hand.
“Food’s here, mister! We threw in some extra honey on the house!”
Neru put our plates in front of us.
Sure enough, the pitcher-style milk vessel next to the pancakes was nearly overflowing with royal ant honey.
I thanked Neru for the service and asked for a refill of tea.
“Delicious…!”
Zena exclaimed in surprise when she took a bite of the pancakes.
“Heh-heh, you know it—that’s a recipe from little Miss Lulu! Everything that girl makes is delicious, I tell ya!”
Neru grinned proudly as she poured us more tea.
“Plus, the honey Lord Kuro brought us is supersweet!”
While not as difficult to get as regular bee honey, ant honey could be found only in maze ant nests and was thus very expensive and difficult to collect, so I gave them some of the huge amount I had saved up in my Storage.
When Neru went back inside, Zena and I chatted as we enjoyed the tea and pancakes.
Just then, a pair of cute voices reached my ears.
“I knew I smelled master, sir!”
“Zena’s here, too…”
Turning my head, I saw Pochi and Tama leaning over the fence that separated the café’s terrace from the street, their tails and hands both waving wildly.
Liza promptly came up behind them and scooped them up under her arms.
“Master, Lady Zena, I am terribly sorry for the interruption.”
“It’s fine,” I replied to Liza’s apology. “Pochi, Tama, say aah.”
As they hung under Liza’s arms, I fed each of them a big bite of pancake, loaded with honey, of course.
“Aah?”
“Aah, sir!”
When I turned back to Zena, I pretended not to notice that she was opening her mouth a bit, too.
Feeding two little kids was one thing, but feeding a high school–aged girl like Zena in front of a bunch of people was a bit too much.
“Are you done exploring the labyrinth for the day?”
“Yes, Lady Karina collapsed, so we decided to withdraw.”
“Collapsed?! Was Lady Karina hurt?!”
Misunderstanding Liza’s report, Zena jumped from her seat.
The sound of her chair falling over made Tama’s and Pochi’s eyes widen, their ears and tail fur standing on end.
“No, she is fine,” Liza responded, and Zena sagged with a sigh of relief.
The two of them hadn’t spoken that much since they first met, but maybe Zena thought of Karina as a comrade who fought at her side on the battleground known as the viceroy’s wife’s tea party.
“Does she have level-up sickness?”
I didn’t see her anywhere, so I patted Pochi and Tama on the head as I confirmed Karina’s status with Liza, mostly just to reassure Zena.
“Yes, Lady Karina and her entourage had a rather severe case, so we brought them to the doctor’s office in the explorers’ guild. Lady Pina is with them as well, so there is nothing to worry about.”
“Level-up sickness, you say? Wait, so when she was sick the other day…”
“Yes, that was level-up sickness, too.” I nodded.
“Wh-what sort of hard-core training did she do to level up so much…?”
“She only did battle with a few dozen opponents around her level. Hardly what I would call ‘hard-core,’ as the number of monsters did not even reach a hundred.”
“A h-hundred?”
Zena stared at Liza.
“D-damn, did you hear that?”
“Yeah, that’s Liza of the Black Spear for ya.”
“How could anyone go up against a bunch of same-level enemies without their life being forfeit?”
“Guess you gotta do something that crazy to become a mithril explorer in just a few months.”
The explorers who were walking past the open terrace murmured to each other in tones bordering on alarm.
“If you are interested, would you like to join us for a session?”
“O-oh no, I couldn’t…”
Zena glanced over at me, so I nodded.
“That’s all right, Liza. We were already planning to go into the labyrinth for a few days starting tomorrow to develop a new hunting ground, so she’ll be hunting monsters at a pace similar to Lady Karina’s.”
“S-Satou?”
For some reason, Zena’s expression seemed to say “et tu?”
“We’ll be coming with you, and we always put safety first, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“O-okay…”
I smiled at her reassuringly, and Zena hesitated for a moment before nodding.
She still looked a bit nervous, but once we actually got started in the labyrinth, I was confident she would see her concerns were unfounded.
Oh, that’s right, I should talk to her about that now.
“Zena, speaking of tomorrow’s labyrinth venture…”
“What is it?”
Zena looked even more anxious, so I assured her it was nothing too important before I got to the matter at hand.
“If you and your squad fight alone, you won’t have many people, so I was hoping you’d be willing to have Lady Karina and her two attendants along, too. Is that all right?”
“Huh? Yes, of course.”
She seemed confused, but promptly agreed.
If anything, she said she was worried that she would hold them back, but I gave her the stamp of approval, since they were all around the same level.
“…Developing a hunting ground?”
Karina was fresh out of the bath and dressed in a robe when I invited her to join us on the two-night labyrinth expedition starting the following day.
Under Arisa’s strict supervision, this bathrobe thoroughly covered her chest and other areas, so it was more practical than suggestive.
Lady Karina’s favorite part was that it felt like a soft towel on her skin, according to her.
“Yes, we’ll be helping Zena and her squad train while we create a new hunting ground in a spot near area eleven.”
“…Zena gets all your attention.”
My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up Karina’s grumble under her breath.
Just as Arisa predicted, Karina seemed to be jealous that I was spending a lot of time on Zena.
“Mew?”
“What’s wrong, sir?”
Tama looked like she’d heard it, too, but Pochi missed the comment, as she was busy downing a post-bath fruit milk.
“I shan’t be joining you on this hunting ground expedition!”
“You’re not interested?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m not interested, but…”
“Come on, let’s fight togetherrrr?”
“Yeah, sir! A new hunting ground means new meat, sir!”
Tama and Pochi pleaded with Karina to join us.
“Fine, I… I mean, I still refuse!”
Karina wavered at the temptation of food and fighting, but then rapidly shook her head.
I would prefer that she didn’t move too quickly in a bathrobe, lest anything too exciting happen around the chest.
“You’re really not going? Master and Lulu are going, too, so dinner won’t be quite as good when they’re not around, you know.”
“I—I said I’m not going, and that’s final!”
Karina made a sour expression at Arisa’s comment, but she quickly turned away again.
It was all too obvious that she was just being prideful, but I didn’t want to keep pushing and have her get even more stubborn, so I decided to back off.
“All right. I can’t force—”
As soon as I started to give up, Karina’s gaze whipped toward me.
Her expression was that of an abandoned puppy.
“—you, but I would also like to check the performance of the equipment I gave you, so could I ask you to reconsider one more time and join us?”
“O-oh, very well. If you absolutely insist, Satou, then I suppose I can come along!”
I gave a rather forced explanation, but Karina promptly agreed without a second thought.
“Oh, sure, you suppose,” Arisa muttered, rolling her eyes.
I was just glad that things with Karina weren’t getting any more complicated.
The next day, Karina and company joined us on the way to the west gate.
Walking alongside me were the beastfolk girls, Miss Karina, and her attendants Erina and the newbie. Since there were a fair amount of people this time, Pina was staying behind.
The rest of the group was supposed to come, too, but Arisa had been talked into staying by the orphanage kids who were upset that their magic lessons would be delayed, and Lulu, Nana, and Mia wound up going with her to the orphanage as well. The group was a bit too big to begin with, though, so that wasn’t really a problem.
They said they would come to visit with some provisions on the last day, so I figured they’d at least be able to see how far Zena and the others had come.
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